coming up on r.t.e. n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden remains hidden in moscow or does he there's some speculation he might be on his way to cuba we'll have the latest on the snowden saga just ahead can the defense team for bradley manning's trial has rested its case but this trial is far from over what's next for manning as things move closer to a conclusion a report just ahead. and a group of u.s. lawmakers has finally reached a deal on student debt loan interest rates but will the deal actually bring relief to those students who are already drowning in debt the answer to that later in today show.

it's thursday july eleventh four pm in washington d.c. i'm maggie lopez and you are watching r.t. well let's start off with the latest information coming out about edward snowden's diplomatic standoff the man responsible for in a say disclosures is believed to still be in the moscow airport but take a look at this today a flight that left from moscow airport under took a unusual course on its trip to cuba instead of its normal trek flight one fifty headed west over central europe crossing bell roofs poland germany and then france and here's a look at the route it was supposed to take and has been doing for four times a week for years really the reasoning the pilots gave for the weird route was turbulence over greenland but still people are wondering is edward snowden on board as soon as you know our soon as we know you'll know but in the meantime let's talk with jesselyn radack about the situation she's the national security and human

rights director at the government accountability project hi there just listen let's start off with these latest rumors. that he might be on board this flight the second aeroflot five flight that people are accusing him of being on board what are the chances of him really taking a commercial jet in general considering that his passport has been resent it i would think there would be pretty low because they expect that there are reporters on the lookout everywhere in the transit area of the russian airport and on the planes that fly those few routes and then in the country even cuba has kind of a question mark about whether it would grant or deny airspace and also i don't know if been ministration conservative another embarrassing bolivia moment like they had before and just to remind our viewers that was a moment when president evo morales this plane was actually diverted and landed in austria because there was allegations that he might be on board that plane hiding out somewhere but let's talk about the possibility of other options in order to move away from moscow what about boats what about land is does he have any other

options right now than planes and flying out i'm sure there are many other options that are being looked at and pursued but i think the more important question is to ask is why is someone who's been granted political asylum by three different countries. having so much trouble getting to a country of refuge here is someone who has been found to have a valid fear of political persecution and we have the persecuting nation the u.s. leaning on those countries that have offered him asylum that's completely inappropriate and noxious for the persecutor to be leaning on countries that have offered him refuge to somehow expel him once he arrives or to disrupt his transit care it's just shameful and if he did somehow sneak out of the moscow airport and end up in a country where there is asylum offers it wouldn't be the first time i know there

was a lot of questions circulating around julian assange and whether. or not he was going to try to sneak out of the ecuadorian embassy in london you know through direct trunk of a car or flew baggage or something like that so want to be the first time that something like that has happened but if he did i know that a lot of. questions around this case is that obviously the plane is going to have to refuel there are no really direct flights from moscow to any of these countries really so if it did refueling cuba would snowden be safe in cuba we don't know that's why i would think this would be a private plane that would have the ability to fly directly to a country of refuge but of course so it cost a lot of money but i'm sure there are other people out there are far better at transit myself who are working on this option but again why is there a worldwide manhunt mainly being propelled by the united states after a whistleblower who has revealed so many illegalities we should be doing

a manhunt of the everyone in the n.s.a. and of all the people who have approved these highly illegal programs we should be doing a domestic search for them rather than survey aling our own people here in the u.s. and another really big question is what kind of effect what kind of fallout will just have on whatever country he ends up landing in do you think that there will be some type of geo political fallout with that country or for that instance with cuba if cuba decides to let the play of land refuel and take off again without obtaining snowden in their possession i think in a country that is snowden they're definitely going to get a lot of growl wing and threats from the u.s. but the u.s. is beginning to look really desperate right now and if they keep in gauging in this overkill and pressuring other countries and maybe doing economic sanctions i mean i really do think that's kind of over the top and that people around the world are

starting to rebel at the actions u.s. is. taken so far in trying to catch snowden i mean can you imagine they would be expended this much taxpayer money and energy going after this guy who revealed highly illegal programs just shows the are driven to distraction by leaks which are really whistleblowers or anyone giving information that the u.s. finds embarrassing or that exposes its own it would galaxy very interesting jeff flynn reda what the government accountability project thank you so much thank you. meanwhile here in the u.s. human rights groups are praising the three latin american countries that have offered to edward snowden asylum venezuela bolivia and nicaragua this morning the code pink activist group marched to those three embassies of those countries to show their gratitude before heading to the u.s. justice department to protest the n.s.a. surveillance programs as well as the manhunt for the man who leaked all those

documents detailing those programs sam sachs was at the code pink rally today and he tells us more. today a coalition of civil libertarians in washington d.c. went on a thank you tour visiting the embassies of those nations that have offered n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden asylum and we're here outside the venezuelan embassy where a group of civil libertarians have gathered to thank them to say officials for offering asylum to edward snowden the screw behind me is gone from the bolivian embassy to the neck rawdon embassy to now the venezuelan embassy all countries that have offered snowden asylum in all countries that are willing to defy u.s. authority here in the region in the last fifteen years there's been a huge geopolitical shift there and these countries are now much more independent of the united states and europe. for example europe is and that's something that wasn't true you know in most of the last hundred hundred years this is a matter of international human rights you know that is how amnesty international said it very clearly he has a right to asylum that the united states is committing gross violations of his

human rights by trying to block his right to asylum and of course he's a whistleblower he exposed major abuses by the u.s. government and he should be protected but the embassy tour was just the first half of today's action next it was on to the department of justice by what your boy what you call for austerity to the executive cries we did so we moved from a thank you tour at the embassies offering asylum is to snowden you know a protester at the department of justice civil libertarians behind me are saying the department of justice a relentless effort to. arrest snowden from taking away his passport to strong arming foreign governments certainly violent his rights as a whistleblower resorts as a human being as well i think it's. a wonderful thing that there are countries that are willing to stand up to the united states strong arming to try to stop them from giving asylum which is an international right to seek asylum but the demonstrators

recognize this isn't just about edward snowden's fate it's also about what we've the merican people do with his revolution it took. courts what. pointed out in the fact that there is no transparency into these programs that there's been no checks and balances in these programs that there's been no accountability for the government abuses here suggests to me that what edward snowden did was a very vital public service for our nation to enable finally a long overdue public debate on these very fundamental questions it's no damn self said that what he most feared is that things wouldn't change and that puts a tremendous burden on us and it really is a defining moment and what we want our society to look like whatever happens to snowden in the short term whether he finds asylum or not is still a big question mark also a question what happens with these leaks fifty five percent of the american people think that snowden is a whistleblower and a plurality of american people think that the government has overstepped its bounds in mass surveillance of americans but with the executive branch the legislative

branch and the judiciary branch seemingly on board with these programs the american people are always going to resort to events like this to have their voice heard in washington same party. it was a surprising move even to those who have been following the case closely over the years the defense team of army private first class bradley manning rested its case wednesday after calling on only ten of an expected twenty one witnesses to testify the trial will resume next week with the robot all by the prosecution are to correspondent lives wall has been in the court since day one and she breaks down the latest developments for us. after just three days of testimony that offense and bradley manning's military trial rest its case the prosecution's case went much longer with the court hearing from dozens of witnesses over the span of six weeks i think i was most struck by the. by how little evidence the prosecution

has brought. some would argue inexhaustible resources the prosecution aim to prove bradley manning aided the enemy when he sent over seven hundred thousand classified documents to wiki leaks according to the government manning should have known that by doing so al-qaeda would have seen the information they had testimonies stating that some of the documents recovered from osama bin laden's compound in pakistan came from wiki leaks the testimony entered into the court also said this man adam gadahn a u.s. citizen turned out qaeda operative used information and video obtained from wiki leaks in his propaganda videos but hard evidence was sparse the prosecution presented two tweets believed to be sent by wiki leaks the first asking for someone to leak military addresses the second claiming to have possession of a secret encrypted video of an airstrike in afghanistan also admitted as evidence of wiki leaks most wanted list of two thousand and nine

a list that mapped out secret documents the whistleblowing website wanted to get ahold of the prosecution was trying to prove that manning was conspiring with julian assad to the founder of wiki leaks an effort to get the documents on the internet but the defense pointed out that there's no proof manning ever saw the tweets or any other requests from wiki leaks. the right. to defense kicked off its case by showing this video the now infamous video dubbed collateral murder that manning leaked it shows an apache helicopter. they're firing down on civilians on the ground in iraq all thirty nine minutes were played in court in the defense phase of the trial manning's attorney david coombs try to characterize manning as a whistleblower a young man that was talented with computers and excelled at his job as an intelligence analyst on the third day the defense called their key witness i don't

think there's there's been a day that's more important now the witness is yoko. harvard law school professor renowned for his work and published articles on internet freedom and how a free press of facts democracy he's done extensive research on the history of wiki leaks when it first emerged he said wiki leaks was respected by traditional media but after manning's leaks he said government rhetoric associated the website with terrorism bangalore testified that the media's tone toward wiki leaks changed specifically citing this claim on fox news this guy is a traitor a treasonous and he has broken every law the united states the guy ought to be shot i'm not for the death penalty so if i'm not for the death i don't want to do it illegally shoot the shot of a despite the attacks bankers said wiki leaks plays a critical role in the media today supporters at the trial called dangler again changer it's too dangerous to convict someone of just giving documents to

a news organization to criminalize that is something akin to treason and so i think that there's testimony really covered their central arguments all manning did not take the stand in the trial after the defense rested he told the judge it was his decision not to testify the government announced they intend to have a rebuttal case next week the possibility of that will be discussed if not closing arguments may happen early next week ultimately it's up to one person the judge to decide manning's fates in washington liz wall r.t. . well to arm or not to arm that is the debate when down congress some of the amid syria's civil war the obama administration announced last month that it was ready to provide military support to rebel forces after declaring that president bashar all off regime had in fact used chemical weapons against civilians but it looks like not all lawmakers are ready to start blindly shipping weapons of broad according to the hill newspaper members of both the house and the senate

intelligence committees have moved to enact tougher restrictions on funding the syrian rebels there reasoning fears of deja vu or as representative adam schiff says primary for me is the concern that if we become an arms supplier will be sucked into another sectarian civil war providing a small amount won't be enough to change the trajectory on the battlefield and will be called upon to give more and more sophisticated weapons i think the risk is too great that once we get in it will be very difficult to get out so far seventy one thousand people have died in the conflict although activists in the country put that number closer to one hundred thousand and as of right now the u.n. security council has not passed a resolution to authorize intervention on behalf of syrian civilians because of that the u.s. cannot sin material support to rebels without breaking international law all also

something to note russia's u.n. envoy handed over samples earlier this week that reportedly prove that rebels and not the syrian government were the ones using chemical weapons. meanwhile the interim government in egypt is walking the tight rope of political transition interim president all the months or is continuing to pick members of his new cabinet in the hopes of making a swift transition at the same time the egyptian military is expanding its balance against the muslim brotherhood leaders accusing them of inciting violence and while all of this. is happening reuters is now reporting that the u.s. has decided to follow through on plans to deliver four f. sixteen fighter jets to egypt in august the plan to send these jets to egypt was made before mohamed morsi was overthrown and as part of an annual aid package white house spokesman white house spokesman jay carney says the administration is not willing to make hasty decisions to cut off aid to egypt until it has all of the

facts for the latest from cairo here's bell true. the supporters of ousted leader mohamed morsy remain steadfast they're continuing their sit in another city in the capital they held a symbolic funeral for the dozens killed in violent clashes on monday morning between security forces and members of the sit in they marched from their mosque where this ongoing protest is happening to the presidential palace where they had a kind of standoff with republican guards this comes at a time when there's been an arrest warrant issued for the supreme leader of the muslim brotherhood mohammed a beer for inciting violence on monday the fee is that this arrest will scupper any plans for the most in brotherhood's participation in this time here in egypt on monday the interim president for his part issued a roadmap to egypt in the form of a constitutional declaration it said that there would be a new constitution and parliamentary and presidential elections within the six

months this was rejected by the most brotherhood and its political party the freedom and justice party. all the way through wait for the election when it was a lot better than most or whatever and then the military would come back and say just repeat everything again start another start this what we are trying to say all the time is not all that more since it was about the values meanwhile the u.s. have responded in a manner which it doesn't necessarily reflect what commentators are saying here which was this is a military coup if this is labeled as a coup this would affect u.s. assistance to egypt we have the latest reports are that the u.s. are sending for ethics sixteen fighter jets to egypt in the next few days this is part of a larger package of twenty fighter planes which eight of which were already delivered in january the spokesperson for the white house for his part said that they would it was not in the interests of america to reconsider its package of assistance to

egypt although president obama has. promised to look into the a. for american support of egypt in the future that was r.t.l. true reporting. and we've talked about how the revelations about national security agency surveillance of american citizens affects their right to privacy one thing we haven't discussed though is the effect of wiretapping on taxpayers' wallets because you better believe that the telecommunication industry isn't handing over all that information for free artie correspondent erin aid has more. how much are your private phone conversations worth to you you know those personal interactions with the people you love about the things you hold dear well they're probably priceless but the u.s. government has priced them out at about fifty grand a piece that's how much your private conversations are worth to them and depending on the technology quite a bit more now in the air of intense and government surveillance

a murky multimillion dollar market has emerged and it's all being paid for with your tax dollars and with a little public scrutiny surveillance these charged by technology and phone companies can vary widely now for example a.t.t. imposes a three hundred twenty five dollars activation fee for each wiretap plus ten additional dollars a day to maintain it smaller carriers like cricket and u.s. cellular they charge only about two hundred fifty per wiretap but snoop on the rising customers that cost the government seven hundred seventy five dollars for the first month and five hundred additional dollars for each month after that so how do we know all this because earlier this week the us federal court system published its annual wiretap report to congress and it details about the day to day business of telecoms handing over data to law enforcement is revealed it includes a breakdown of every major carriers fees and every sort of data request the average cost of a wiretap order last year was fifty thousand four hundred fifty two dollars and of those wiretaps ordered only eighteen percent actually led to

a conviction and as of two says it may sound this is how the government prosecutors measure their own success by how many bodies they incarcerate regardless of how ridiculous the offense may be so using the numbers from this report for every conviction they get from wiretapping the government weighs over two hundred seventy thousand dollars and other wiretaps that produce absolutely nothing and this is based on their own metric for success this is a mind numbing waste of taxpayer dollars on surveillance that really delivers infected ineffective intelligence now if americans aren't disturbed by cell phone carriers handing over cell phone users personal data to law enforcement in mass and in many cases without a warrant we might at least be interested in just how much that service is costing us in tax dollars from washington d.c. i marinate. well ten days after congress missed the deadline to come up with a deal on student loan interest rates it looks like lawmakers are ready to sit down

and broker a deal now as a reminder interest rates doubled on july first from three point four percent to six point eight percent but here's what the tentative agreement would do interest rates would be tied to a ten year treasury bond meaning that stand for stanford student loans students would pay the treasury rate plus one point eight percent for federal parent plus loans interest rates would be tied to that ten year yield plus four point five percent and all interest rates would capped at eight point two five percent for undergraduate students so does this agreement solve the problem and get america's higher education system back on track well for more i'm joined by richard fowler a nationally syndicated radio host and tanya abrams she's the co-founder of the student debt crisis and italia i would like to start with you now as the co-founder of the student debt crisis are you happy with this tentative deal that we are now hearing about not at all this is

a last minute temper not temporary excuse me a last minute fix that we were actually unaware of until this morning you know yesterday the breaking news was they came to no deal and this morning here behold we have this deal none of us wanted we're putting we're expecting future students to continue to pay the price. does not make sense why interest rates would not be point seven five the way that it was that warren talks about the same rate that the banks borrow at yes it's ok for the next couple of years but it's already projected in two thousand and sixteen that it graduate students will start to pay more than the what they're paying now so we do not think this is a great fix it all and we also don't think that this deals with the existing trillion dollars that's currently out there now richard this idea is similar to ones that both are. publicans and democrats were putting out before the july first deadline so my first question to you is why now well i agree with you i think and i

grew to tell you i think the fact the president put a plan out there would be students objected to the market was bad the fact the republicans put out a plan that would make students object to the market that's also bad and the fact that the federal government is going to slated to make fifty one billion dollars off of this is also bad when you have when so it's like students are in the negative going into the trillions and trillions of dollars of debt and the federal government have to make fifty one billion dollars in profit to get our so-called deficit so i think the problem that we have here is there's no consensus on the hill to solve this problem and unfortunately while there is no consensus on the hill when people are more concerned about raising campaign cash the american students continue to suffer and to tell you a lot of people talk about this student loan hike and they talk about the fact that it happened on july first but do you think that we are losing track as richard says of the larger overarching debate that just because it's raising now we still have one trillion dollars in current student debt. yeah well here's my diploma from the

c.l.a. right over there that's where i went to school and i wish that this was worth more i went back to school when i was twenty six years old to get a degree to get a better job and it didn't work i have only fifteen thousand dollars in debt and i say only because the national average is twenty seven thousand but it's far too much for two years of an education and i'm discouraged from going to graduate school which i was accepted to because i'm not about to take on another sixty thousand i'm part of the existing one trillion dollars that's our one point two that's out there and we need to deal with that that's the only way we're going to overhaul the system is if we actually focus on that one point two trillion dollars all of these interest rate hikes are such a small amount of the debate compared to the over thirty nine million borrowers with the existing debt i think it's. i think you know i told when sally may cause me or when the banks come in i want them to i want to say hey listen do you want my degree back you can repossess it if you like because you take a you and i think the face of student loan debt has been sort of skewed by those on

the right to be leave the student to sit at home and drink beers at home with their parents it's just not true when you look at the statistic tells you a majority of borrowers are over thirty over thirty they're working full time job easier teachers your firefighters your nurses and your police officers and while they're trying to protect the american people they're being sort of being dealt a bad hand by the american government absolutely and now richard there is something else i want to talk to you about dealing with this tentative plan if it does in fact pass and everyone agrees on it it would have retroactively take back that student debt hike that happened on july first so this is not the first time that we have seen something retroactively not happen my question to you is what is the point of having deadlines if you can just be retroactively taken back time and time again i agree with you i don't understand why this congress has put in deadlines i think it has everything to do with the fact that john boehner is in effect of being a leader as well as i think you know we have to call the some democrats need to be called to the. this too you can sit here and say you're for the students and you're

for young people for millennia and we came out to vote for the president and democrats in record numbers and you don't see them protecting young people all the time as they should and we should i think we saw elizabeth warren come out to protect young people we've seen sure brown in a brand from the senator from new york come out and say we need to refinance the dead or deal with the debt well that's just not good enough were those democrats for those virginia democrats those ohio democrats those middle of the road democrats who students voted for you and who voted for understand that this was to be our hope and change and so i think but it's but it's beyond that though you have to get involved in the process it's very interesting considering the fact that right now student overtakes credit card debt and this is a country that was supposed to be leading the world in terms of education innovation except richard fowler is the nationally syndicated radio host and natalia abrams is the co-founder of student debt crisis and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter at meghan

underscore lopez stay tuned prime interest is next. wealthy british style stock. market. can. find out what's really happening to the global economy. for a no holds barred global financial headlines kaiser report. download the official. language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from. your mobile

device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. well including. technology innovation. developments around russia. the future covered. i would rather i asked questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

good afternoon welcome to prime interest i'm bob english in washington d.c. here are the stories we're telling today well so much for the summer doldrums after the markets closed yesterday then talked the markets up again even gold he said the easy money spigot will remain open blacks on blacks up well talk will top market manipulation with murphy of get to next and there is a chill blowing through tech land that's because after apple's gamble to go to trial well the judge came down hard she rolled the antitrust suit that apple was guilty of price fixing e-books now the tech giant will likely be regulated by the feds finally an eighty year old ban that was a pillar of the securities industry is about to be lifted it will be easier for small businesses to raise money the flipside is a potential.